A conventional program detail information display apparatus is designed to display the program detail information by the manipulation of the viewer to designate a desired program, obtain the detail information of the program, and instruct to display.
That is, the viewer manipulates in this manner to display the program detail information transmitted in every program of every channel, and selects the program by referring to the displayed program detail information. This program detail information is the information including the synopsis, names of the cast, etc.
In other method, the user designates a desired program actively by using the display function of program list and program retrieval function by program genre.
In these methods, however, the program detail information display screen is displayed in a separate screen from the program list, or the screen is changed over from the program list to the program detail information display screen, and it is hard to understand the correspondence between the program detail information and program. Besides, the user's operation is complicated.
To solve such problems, a apparatus for displaying the program detail information directly in the program list is proposed in Japanese Laid-open Patent No. H11-155110.
The conventional methods are explained below by referring to FIG. 12. FIG. 12 shows a screen displaying program detail information in the program list. In the diagram, the vertical direction at the right side of a screen 1200 is a channel column 1210, and the lateral direction is a time column 1260. Channels 1220, 1230, 1240, 1250 are individual channels. In channel 1220, programs are displayed along the time column 1260 in the lateral direction. For example, from time 12:00 to time 13:00, a program 1221 is broadcast. Similarly, a program 1231 is one of the programs broadcasted in channel 1230, a program 1241 is one of the programs broadcasted in channel 1240, and a program 1251 is one of the programs broadcast in channel 1250.
Upon start of display of the program list, display frames are formed in each channel by dividing in a uniform width in the vertical axis direction (direction of channel column 1210) and in uniform time unit width in the lateral axis direction (direction of time column 1260).
The viewer designates a program by moving the cursor to the position of a program name desired to know the detail information out of the program names displayed in the program list displayed on the screen 1200. At this moment, the detail information of the program corresponding to the cursor position is taken out from a specified database, and displayed as program detail information. The column of the program corresponding to the cursor position is magnified in the direction of the channel column 1210 and in the direction of the time column 1260 so that the program detail information and program name may be displayed in a proper size.
In FIG. 12, the cursor is positioned at the program 1241, and the program 1241 is designated. The viewer does not designate the program 1221, program 1231 or program 1251, only the program titles are displayed in these columns. On the other hand, the column of the program 1241 displays the program detail information such as the synopsis and the cast, together with the program title.
In such apparatus, the user must designate a desired program by moving the cursor to each program and display the program detail information, out of a tremendous number of programs displayed on the program list, and select the program by referring to the displayed program detail information. In such method, the operation is very complicated and practically difficult.
In another prior art, the viewer is not required to select each program from the program list, but by using the viewer's preference information, preferred programs for the viewer are selected and recommended from a huge list of programs. This prior art is based on the preference of the viewer. In other words, programs recommended by the program provider cannot be presented to the user without requiring the viewer's preference information.
In the multichannel trend of television broadcast, the number of programs is increasing enormously, and these problems will become more and more serious. It is hence extremely difficult for the viewer to designate a program actively from the program list by program retrieval by program list or program genre, and display the program detail information and select a program.
Yet, the conventional program detail information display apparatus has no means for telling the programs recommended by the program provider.